Tom Cotton on Jobs

Yes on minimum wage of $8.25, but no minimum-wage-economy

Rep. Tom Cotton (R-AR) is backing a state proposal to increase Arkansas's minimum wage, a move that could muddle a major attack from Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR). "I'm going to vote for that initiated act as a citizen, but as Arkansas's next US senator
I'm going to make sure that we have a healthy economy, not the kind of minimum-wage economy that Barack Obama and Mark Pryor have created. The minimum wage should be a floor and a stepping stone to higher-wage jobs, not a ceiling,"
Cotton said about the state initiative.

The announcement means Pryor and Cotton now hold the same position: Opposition to raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10, as President Obama has called for, but support for raising the state minimum wage to
$8.25 an hour.

Pryor has previously criticized Cotton for declining to take a stance on the state push, and Cotton's comments remove minimum wage as a wedge issue for him just days after the measure officially qualified for the ballot.

Voted YES on allowing compensatory time off for working overtime.

Congressional Summary:

Amends the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to authorize private employers to provide compensatory time off to private employees at a rate of 1 1/2 hours per hour of employment for which overtime compensation is required.

Authorizes an employer to provide compensatory time only if it is in accordance with an applicable collective bargaining agreement.

Prohibits an employee from accruing more than 160 hours of compensatory time.

Requires an employee's employer to provide monetary compensation for any unused compensatory time off accrued during the preceding year.

Requires an employer to give employees 30-day notice before discontinuing compensatory time off.

Opponent's Argument for voting No:

Rep. COURTNEY: This is the fifth time that the majority party has introduced [this bill since] 1997; and each time, the huge flaws in this legislation have resulted in its complete collapse.
And once again, it doesn't deserve that support. Despite the representations made in its title--that it promotes workers' flexibility, that it gives workers choice--a closer examination of the bill shows the opposite is true. The better way to describe this bill is the More Work, Pay Less bill.

The 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act created a bright line to protect people's right to a 40-hour work week, and make sure that that next hour after 40 hours is paid for with the time-and-a-half of wages. That created the weekend in America. That created the time off that middle class families have taken for granted for decades.

What this bill does is it blurs that line; it creates total chaos in terms of trying to come up with a system to set up ground rules with a case-by-case written contract, and then leaves it to the enforcement of State Labor Departments Wage and Hours Divisions, which are totally incapable of going into the tens of thousands of workplaces all across America.